By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja
One of the Ondo governorship aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr Goddy Erewa, who was on Friday disqualified by the screening committee from contesting the party’s primary coming up on the 22nd and 23rd of this month, has been cleared by the Screening Appeal Committee.
Erewa was cleared yesterday by the Ondo governorship screening Appeal’s Committee of the PDP under the Chairmanship of Senator Istifanus Dung.
The Appeal’s Committee had met on Monday at the party’s National Headquarters following an Appeal by Erewa and Otumba Bamidele Akingboye over their disqualifications.
Speaking with newsmen after his clearance, Erewa who proudly displayed his Certificate of Clearance, explained that his middle name, ‘Otisewino’ was misspelt by the party, making it inconsistent with the details in his school certificates.
He said that the inconsistencies were what the committee took note of and excluded him from the cleared list.
His words, “The reason they gave was that there was an error in the spelling of my name but there was no error. May be the way they were pronouncing the name in their own dialect is different from the way it was spelled.
“The name in the certificate that was not cleared is different from the name in my school certificate. So when they looked at it from my appeal, they had to clear me”, he said.
Erewa said that the error is from the party and they had to rescind their decision when he presented the correct names as contained in his certificates.
The aspirant said that his emergence at the primary is assured as the people and the delegates have declared their support to him.
According to him, “If you go online now, everywhere is bubbling. The delegates are for me, I am a man of the people. They love me because I have contributed to the community. I have impacted on the people directly or indirectly and they want me to be their governor”.
Erewa said that he will not step down for any candidate, adding that aspirants cannot go for consensus as there is no luxury of time.
He expressed the firm optimism that he will “overrun all the other aspirants” including the deputy governor, Hon. Agbola Ajayi at the primary.
At the time of filling this report, the party has not made disclosure on the status of Mr Akingboye, who was also disqualified by the screening committee.
The PDP primary election will hold on the 22-23 of July, this year, while the governorship election will hold on the 10th of October.
